A warning about postwar Iraq
World must rebuild nation, Pakistani journalist says
By CHRIS McGANN
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
(Pakistani journalist)Ahmed Rashid did not take issue with the claim that Saddam Hussein is hiding chemical and biological weapons and is clearly the most dangerous Central Asian dictator in power today. And he only alluded to a fundamental disagreement with the way the United States plans to topple him.
His message was a warning: Unless the world learns from the mistakes made after the Taliban was crushed in Afghanistan, the problems in Iraq and instability in the region will be 10 times worse.
"There's been no reconstruction in Afghanistan," he said. "Until you start creating a self-sustaining economy, you won't win hearts and minds."
Rashid said the United States now knows terrorism has political and economic causes.
"This is rooted in a failed state," he said. "The same situation is going to happen in Iraq. You can finish the war in 10 days but are you going to straighten up the mess afterward?
"Afghanistan had to be a model that showed we can bomb you, we can kill you, but then we are going to build you into the modern world," he said. "The U.S. has failed at that."
He said the United States came to that realization shortly after an assassination attempt on President Karzai -- the only leader Rashid who believes is able to unify and modernize Afghanistan.
Rashid is one of a few Mideast experts to whom the Pentagon and State Department officials turn for advice.
He got calls from those agencies shortly after the failed Karzai assassination attempt, asking "Is there anyone else?" But he and other experts agreed there is no one.
"Finally now, you've got some commitment -- $1 billion for road building -- but a year, you wasted," he said.
Karzai is trying to tackle the problem of how to build a modern national identity for a country that has been burdened by conflict for so long, Rashid said.
Karzai understands that saying prayers five times a day is not incompatible with democracy, he said.
And although Rashid wanted to know how much interest U.S. teenagers have in international politics, the teachers wanted to know how to engage their students beyond map quizzes on Pakistan, Uzbekistan and "Whogivesastan."
Rashid had several suggestions, including teaching the history of the nomadic tribes of the region and British and Soviet colonialism.
Nora Leech, program director for the World Affairs Council, which organized Rashid's three Seattle lectures yesterday, said all were well-attended.
"People are hungry for information about the region," Leech said. "All sides would like to see the quality of life for the people in Central Asia improved -- he brings that perspective."
Notes penciled in the margins squeezed against the text of almost every page of Michelle Moore's copy of Rashid's book "Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia," which was published in 2001 by the Yale University Press.
The 29-year-old science filmmaker is against war in Iraq because she thinks there must be more creative ways to deal with the region's age-old problem and wanted to hear Rashid
"Reading the a book like this gives me language to express the way I feel," Moore said. Her interest in the Islamic mysticism was Moore's steppingstone to learning more about the cultures of Central Asia as well as a pathway out of conflict.
"I intuit that the answer lies in the mystical history and tradition rooted in the region, which is a lot different than what's being imported to," she said.
Rashid would not dispute that generally speaking, people in the West would benefit from a better understanding of Central Asian traditions -- but his recommendations about policies that would stabilize the region are anything but mystical.
Building roads, schools and setting up modern printing press for the 14 new local print publications Rashid helped establish in Afghanistan with donations and proceeds from his last book are the brass-tack solutions that win the hearts and minds of the people who have lived for decades under the tyranny of war lords, he said.
Rashid said that based on his conversation with Karzai, "Afghans are now extremely disappointed and depressed about the failure of the United States to live up to its commitments," Rashid said. "America has lost a tremendous opportunity."
Failure of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan has led to a large-scale intervention by countries in the region -- Russia, India and Pakistan -- and allowed warlords to regain their grip on the region, he said.
"It's a dangerous situation."
Rashid said the United States has learned from mistakes in Afghanistan.
Whether or not that will lead to a commitment in Iraq after the war is another question, he said. |
